Judge William Alsup was born in Mississippi in 1945 and attended state-segregated white public schools until his junior year at Mississippi State University. The first African American student would enroll in the college that year, marking the author's first experience in an integrated school. Alsup was accepted to Harvard University in 1967, which led him to move from his home state for the first time. At Harvard, Alsup earned a law degree and a master's in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government. In 1971-1972, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, working on the abortion cases and the "Trees Have Standing" case. Alsup then returned to Mississippi, where he practiced civil rights law before eventually relocating to California as a trial lawyer. In 1999, he was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate as a United States District Judge in San Francisco. He has presided over a number of high-profile trials, with more than two hundred of his opinions being reprinted in official legal reporters. He is also the author of Such a Landscape! and Missing in the Minarets. Alsup is married with two children and two grandchildren.